Monday, July 21, 2014

As the gentle reader is well aware, Scott Walker's agenda included more than trying to bust the unions and giving away taxpayer dollars to dark money special interests. It also included destroying the public school system in order to pave the way for privatization of the education system.

It's not only Milwaukee Public Schools getting hit, but also the rural school systems like the one in Waupaca, as reported by Robert Cloud of the Waupaca County Post:

Estimates released this month by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction indicate state
aid to Waupaca schools may be cut by as much as $500,000 in 2014-15.

Not including this most recent cut, the Waupaca School District has seen its state aid decrease by a total of $3.4 million over the past five years, according to District Administrator Dave Poeschl.

Under state law, when a school district loses state aid, it can recoup that money by increasing property taxes.

“Over that same five-year period, we’ve only recouped $1.9 million through increased property taxes,” Poeschl said. “We’ve been fully aware of the effect that the decrease in state aids has on taxpayers. We’ve been doing the best we can to mitigate that effect.”

As a result of not raising property taxes to cover lost state aid, the Waupaca School District’s budget is about $2.7 million below the state-mandated revenue cap.

“We can’t continue to do that and at the same time provide the quality education our community is expecting,” Poeschl said.

The gentle reader should also note that even though it was Walker who cut the education budget by nearly a billion dollars, it is the local school board and administrators that have to try to make it work. Sadly, Walker has sabotaged the education system so much that they can't do that without making up Walker's shortfall by raising taxes, risking the ire of the voters.

In other words, they are damned if they do and damned if they don't.

Either way, Walker, if given the chance after November, and his fellow corporately-owned Teapublicans will sweep in, declare public schools are failures (even though he was the one that made sure they failed) and say the only way to save the schools are to privatize them.

That was Walker's modus operandi in Milwaukee County and it still is as governor.